Riders take part in National XCO Cup at Thaba Trails
The country’s biggest Cross-country for mountain cycling saw multitudes compete at Johannesburg South’s Thaba Trails on June 4.
Riders from across the country and neighbouring countries flocked in their numbers to take part in the National Mountain Biking series at Thaba Trails.
Made possible by Balwin Properties, the race saw at least 250 riders taking part in the event, with riders as young as eight years old having their own separate course.
The race, which featured the discipline of cross-country, entailed a course of about 4km to 4.3km. Riders showed off required mountain biking skills such as drops, gap-jumps, berms and a few other technical abilities as they went head-to-head in the course.
“Cross-country is the Olympic discipline of mountain biking. This is the entry point for the world cups that people see on television. We are trying to progress riders from school-level cycling and we put them into provincials. This was classified as a national race – the highest level of racing in SA cross-country,” said Paola Damilano, MTB director of Cycling SA.
The race featured top riders from Botswana, Namibia, and Lesotho, including one rider from Australia who rode for Union Cycliste Internationale points.
“How it works with UCI, a holding federation for cycling, is that they award UCI points. All our riders who are juniors or elites earned international UCI points on the cycling calendar. This was a very important race for our riders to earn points. The ultimate goal is to progress riders to represent SA at the Olympic games,” explained Damilano.
She reiterated that strong enough elite riders, aged from 19, are ultimately selected to race overseas resulting from their success in these races.
Without Balwin Properties as main sponsors, Damilano said they would not be able to host this big race.
“Balwin’s input was phenomenal. We rely heavily on sponsors and the public that wants to help grow the sport. We transformed this area into a Race Village and brought in a whole lot of medics and all necessary equipment. We also had a few more sponsors that made this possible, such as 100%, 32 GI, Ecologic and a few others,” Damilano said.
